Leyden papyrus X

The Leyden papyrus X (P. Leyden X) is a papyrus codex written in Greek at about the end of the 3rd century A.D.[1] or perhaps around 250 A.D. and buried with its owner[2], and today preserved at Leiden in the Netherlands. It contains alchemical texts, mostly concerned with making dyes and alloys which can be made to look like gold. It also mentions Moses as an alchemist.[3]

Contents

Origin

The Leiden papyrus was discovered at Thebes in Egypt, together with the Stockholm Papyrus, which was probably written by the same scribe[4], and many Greek magical papyri, in the early 19th century by an adventurer calling himself Jean d'Anastasi, holding the office of Swedish vice-consul in Alexandria. In 1828 he sold a number of papyri to the Dutch government, which were lodged at the Leiden University Library, and labelled as "papyrus A", "papyrus B", etc. The first publication of information was in 1843, and the texts were published with Latin translation in 1885 by Leemans as Papyri Graeci Musei antiquarii publici Lugduni Batavii.[1] Papyrus X is the most interesting of these.[5] There is some relationship to the Greek magical papyri,[6] and to the Mappae clavicula.

Details

The papyrus consists of 10 leaves, 30 x 34 cm in size, folded lengthwise and making 20 pages, of which 16 contain writing. Each page has 28-47 lines. The text contains one hundred and eleven recipes for extracting precious metals, or counterfeiting such metals, or precious stones and purple dye. It also contains details of the manufacture of textiles, and making gold and silver inks. The recipes are not detailed, and probably served as an aide-memoire for those already familiar with the process. The presentation is exclusively practical, and does not include the usual alchemical or philosophical elements. The last eleven recipes are simply short extracts from the Materia Medica of Pedanius Dioscorides. They are chiefly descriptions of certain minerals. It is of interest to note that the extracts in the papyrus are very close to the present editions of this Greek writer compiled from quite different sources.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b E.R.Caley, The Leyden Paprus X: An English Translation with Brief Notes, p.1149: "These two papyri have, however, upon the basis of unquestioned philological and paleographic evidence, been ascertained to have been written at about the end of the third century A.D. so that they are by far the earliest original historical evidence that we have in our possession concerning the nature and the extent of ancient chemical knowledge."
  2. ^ Georgia Lynette Irby-Massie, Paul Turquand Keyser, Greek science of the Hellenistic era: a sourcebook, p.251
  3. ^ Raphael Patai, The Jewish Alchemists: A History and Source Book, p.33: as one of the "philosophers of the divine science and art".
  4. ^ Stanton J. Linden, The alchemy reader: from Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton, p.46.
  5. ^ a b E.R.Caley, The Leyden Paprus X: An English Translation with Brief Notes, p.1150: "From the chemical point of view the most interesting of the papyri then translated into Latin was the one now known as the Leyden Papyrus X..."
  6. ^ Pamela O. Long, Openness, secrecy, authorship: technical arts and the culture of knowledge, p.262: "For the relationships between the chemical papyri and the Greek Magical Papyri see Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, 168-72."

Bibliography

External links